ED arrests Sona Pappu after 10-hour marathon grilling

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday formally arrested high-profile land-grabbing and extortion suspect Biswajit Poddar, alias Sona Pappu, following a grueling ten-and-a-half-hour interrogation at its Kolkata headquarters. Infamous as the "terror" of Ballygunge and South Kolkata pockets, the accused had successfully evaded federal law enforcement for nearly three and a half months by playing a persistent game of hide-and-seek. Despite skipping six consecutive statutory summonses issued under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), Pappu unexpectedly surfaced at the central agency’s office on Monday morning, only to be taken into custody late in the evening after failing to cooperate with investigators.  

Pappu first grabbed prominent headlines on February 1, 2026, when an illegal real estate turf war heated up Kankulia Road in Dhakuria, leading to public clashes, armed intimidation, and local reports of gunfire. While local police forces failed to track even a trace of his whereabouts, the absconding criminal routinely mocked central agencies by releasing defiant video messages across various social media handles. During his run, digital footprints and viral photographs surfaced linking Pappu to highly influential Trinamool Congress (TMC) figures, including former Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) Debashis Kumar, prompting federal investigators to take over the money laundering track of the syndicate.

Before entering the ED's Salt Lake facility on Monday, a defiant Pappu maintained his innocence to reporters, asserting that he had committed no operational fraud and that no formal extortion complaints were registered against him at municipal police stations. He also attempted to completely distance himself from the administrative fallout by claiming he shared no acquaintance with arrested Kolkata Police Deputy Commissioner Santanu Sinha Biswas. However, federal sleuths confronted him with extensive financial ledgers showing how extorted funds from construction companies were routed through his arrested business aide, Jai S. Kamdar, directly into the accounts of influential regional administrators.